Palo Alto police officers who worked on the high-profile Jennifer Schipsi murder investigation are being honored with a “Case of the Year” award from the International High Technology Crime Investigation Association, the organization announced Wednesday.

Detective Aaron Sunseri and Sgt. Con Maloney will receive the award, along with two Central Valley cellphone experts, for their work reviewing more than 4,000 pages of cellphone and text message records.

“People v. Zumot shows the extent to which investigators must collaborate with one another to put together both digital and physical pieces of a case,” association president Duncan Monkhouse said in a statement.

Cellphone records were a key element in the prosecution of Schipsi’s boyfriend, Bulos “Paul” Zumot, for her murder on Oct. 15, 2009. Zumot was convicted on Feb. 10, 2011, of killing Schipsi, a 29-year-old real estate agent, and setting fire to their cottage on Addison Avenue.

During Zumot’s trial earlier this year, Santa Clara County Deputy District Attorney Chuck Gillingham used the cellphone evidence to argue that Zumot deleted hostile text messages sent during a heated argument with Schipsi before her death. In addition, Gillingham said records from wireless towers showed that Zumot may have taken Schipsi’s iPhone with him the day she died and called her, perhaps in an effort to create an alibi.

Some of the defense’s rebuttal also relied on cellphones: defense attorney Mark Geragos said a cellphone video of Zumot and Schipsi making love, recorded the day she died, suggested they had resolved their argument.

Zumot is scheduled to be sentenced Sept. 9 and faces a prison term of 33 years to life.

The case was profiled on Dateline NBC and 20/20.

Sunseri, Maloney, and Central Valley investigators Jim Cook and James Eichbaum will be awarded commemorative plaques at a High Technology Crime Investigation Association conference to be held in Indian Wells from Sept. 12 to 14.

Violent police encounters in California last year led to the deaths of 157 people and six officers, the state attorney general’s office said Thursday in a report that provides the first statewide tally on police use-of-force incidents.